The Heart of Ellwood Mesa

ClimateCommunity ResilienceWildlife and BiodiversityLand Conservation
Written By LegacyWorks

Ellwood Mesa, Goleta CA

We are blessed to have so many beautiful, wild places to go to restore ourselves and rebalance our lives - places that are essential to remaining resilient and connected as individuals and communities through disasters and the day-to-day. One of those places is Ellwood Mesa, the 234 acres that make up the Ellwood Mesa Open Space, Sperling Preserve and Goleta Monarch Butterfly Grove. 

Ellwood Mesa is an important node in a connected mosaic of protected lands – including the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County's Coronado Butterfly Preserve and UCSB’s recently restored North Campus Open Space. It is also one of the most important overwintering sites for the western population of monarch butterflies. For decades, Ellwood’s eucalyptus grove offered the specific microclimate characteristics monarchs require to survive the winter months. But monarch populations are declining globally, and the overwintering population at Ellwood has declined as well, raising alarm bells in the community. 

Dr. Dan Meade was one of the world's leading experts on western monarch overwintering. He worked closely with the City of Goleta for more than a decade to monitor Ellwood’s monarchs and the groves that host them. Dan identified the dead and dying eucalyptus trees as the most significant threat to the butterfly habitat – both from lost protection from wind and the increased risk of catastrophic fire.

With guidance from Dan and other dedicated scientists, and years of study and public input, the City adopted the Monarch Butterfly Habitat Management Plan to define how they will preserve, restore, and enhance the monarch and other wildlife habitats. With the plan in hand, Goleta secured $5.6 million in state funding to begin restoring Ellwood Mesa. This is a watershed moment as the City gets ready to begin the work. 

This past winter, the City of Goleta Parks and Open Space Division invited LegacyWorks Group to help them unveil the City’s efforts to restore this beloved natural area and adapt to changing conditions. To ensure the community is aware of the remarkable amount of work that’s been done and the science behind the plan, our team is synthesizing years of community input, research, and planning into simple, clear messages and stories. To get those stories out, we started an Ellwood section on the City’s website and helped plan and facilitate a symposium on monarchs in partnership with the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum. The event focused on the importance of monarch conservation efforts in California and the excellent work at Ellwood. 

At the event, LynneDee Althouse honored her late husband, Dr. Dan Meade, who studied monarchs at Ellwood and elsewhere since the 1990s. Dr. Meade was the City’s lead monarch scientist from 2010 until his unexpected death in late 2022. LynneDee continues Dan’s work for the City with a team of scientists at Althouse & Meade, Inc. and Creekside Science.

After the presentation, attendees interacted with the Mayor of Goleta, the City’s Ellwood project team, and experts from the Xerces Society, Land Trust for Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, Santa Barbara County Fire Department, Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council, and the Santa Barbara Zoo. 

The presentation highlighted how much the city has invested in research and planning, and the importance of partnerships for long-term stewardship. The City’s vision for Ellwood includes the participation of organizations, neighbors and citizens of diverse backgrounds and interests – a vision we believe is critical for the future of all our open spaces and wild places. 

Restoring and caring for a wild place like Ellwood Mesa in an urban context is incredibly challenging. Balancing disparate interests and expectations adds immense complexity. Success requires engaging the full diversity of our community, communicating clearly and openly, and building trust and relationships. We look forward to doing all of that with the Ellwood partners and the broader community to restore balance and rebuild resilience at Ellwood Mesa – and beyond.

We feel blessed to get to do this work and to support a wide range of projects and initiatives to reduce wildfire risk, restore wild places, and rebuild connections and relationships between communities, individuals, and nature across Santa Barbara County. We couldn’t do it without your continued support and involvement. So thank you! If you would like to learn more about this project or any of our other work in the Santa Barbara region, please don’t hesitate to ask! 

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